August 19, 2005

There was a scene in a Woody Allen movie where Woo…

There was a scenein a Woody Allen movie where Woody attempts a jail break by using a gun that was carved out of a bar of soap (which I guess he dyed black with shoe polish or something). Things were going along smoothely until it started raining. Then the bubbles gave him away. (First caller to name the movie wins a signed print of any photo seen on this blog so far).

I had an experience a while back that reminded me of that scene. I had gotten into a discussion with a young friend from work about some Biblical topic. This friend is extremely bright and I have talked with him about “religious” topics before. He is a member of an Episcopal Church here in town and he has betrayed his position as a liberal WRT to scripture more than once. On this occasion, the discussion devolved into a lecture where I was informed that, among other things, Paul didn’t write anywhere near half of the epistles attributed to him, the dates of the epistles are actually 200 years later than most think, all of the content of those epistles is no longer pertinent to 21st century life, that the Bible transmission over time has corrupted the text to a point where . . . ( I could keep going but “yada yada yada” works just as well).

It was all very intimidating. I had taken some fairly robust classes at seminary that addressed many of these outlandish claims. In spite of that, however, I was unable to utter a single thing in defense of orthodoxy. So, with my tail stuffed between my legs, and feeling like the idiot that my young friend secretly thinks that I am, I sat there and took it.

Then it started to sprinkle a little and the bubbles definitely appeared. While citing a case in point, my friend made a reference to 1st Romans!